Regarding the other comments here: this is a book review, not a general analysis of emissions cheating.

I am about halfway through the book right now (so far, very highly recommended).

There is a lot more in the book than is captured in this review. VW's history is extremely interesting, and the company has unique organizational aspects (even by German standards).

And related, an excellent, detailed technical summary of cheating implementations, including the historical evolution across manufacturers: https://cseweb.ucsd.edu/~klevchen/diesel-sp17.pdf